Restaurant Review: Cafe Via Mare

For months now, our date nights have been limited. I have been spending our weekends staying at home. As a matter of fact, I last set foot on a mall 43 days ago. Aside from the fact that we’re saving up for our house, I am simply lazy. Seriously, it seems like I am losing interest in going out. Maybe, my body clock is already starting to sound like lo-la… lo-la… lo-la… HAHAHA!!!

But because we know that we have to work hard to keep the fire burning in our marriage, we try so hard to squeeze in spending some quality time together. Malls are out of the equation because those cute shoes and dresses are hypnotizing me and making me shell out my hard-earned money. I am also required to go back to the doctor every week so we really don’t have a lot of time to go out.

We had a medical appointment one Friday night, and we finished around 9PM. We were too tired to look for a place to eat so we decided to just check out the food choices inside the hospital. Fortunately, St. Luke’s Global houses a few restaurants. That night, we opted to have dinner at Cafe Via Mare.

Cafe Via Mare is located at the ground level of the Medical Arts Building. Most of the restaurants in that area were already closed but Cafe Via Mare was still filled with a lot of people. And more people were actually coming in when we started eating.

Anyway, Café Via Mare’s Monggo Soup is probably the most expensive monggo in the entire universe. Haha! I wasn’t sure if it is because of the giant shrimps. But for me, the overcooked shrimps didn’t help at all. The taste was just so-so. I felt that it lacked the flavors and thickness of traditional monggo soup. Ang labnaw, kasing labnaw ng utak ko after 8 hours of work.

On the other hand, hubby got their Tinapang Bangus. I don’t really like fish but bangus is one of my favorites.

Tinapang Bangus PHP235

The plating wasn’t really impressive, but they compensated the lack of presentation with good taste. The fish has the perfect combination of acidity and saltiness. I was also impressed that they actually took time to remove the excess oil from the fish. The vinegar dip was really good! Even the tomato with egg side dish wasn’t left behind. I kept on grabbing it from Boyet. :p

I got Arroz a la Cubana which I didn’t really enjoy. It’s the usual rice, minced meat in tomato sauce, fried egg and fried plantains. The meat was a bit bland. Additional tomato sauce, salt and pepper can probably save it. In my opinion, the fried bananas were the only saving grace. :|